Would you like a cup of tea ?

Evelina Rioukhina, UNECE

Visiting many tea plantations in different regions of the world, I got used to the many exotic words used to describe various kinds of tea. While in Europe, I discovered that not so many people, although tea-drinkers or tea-gourmands, know the species, and especially the grades of tea. If you enter a tea room in Europe, I am sure that more often than not you might have the following dialogue:

“I would like a cup of tea”, you will ask. 
“Green tea? Black tea? Flavoured tea?” will be the voice in the tea-room.
“I would like a cup of BOPF”, a way of testing the tea-room gourmands.
“We do not serve other drinks here – this is a tea-room!” will very probably be the voice in the tea-room. 
“Indeed. I’d like a cup of tea, BOPF tea!”, you will insist, proud of your knowledge. “Broken Orange Pekoh Fannings tea! That is the highest grade of tea!”. You will be delighted to triumph over the astounded assembly.

Brief historical excursion: The story of tea began in ancient China over 5,000 years ago. According to legend, Shen Nung, an early emperor, was a skilled ruler, creative scientist and patron of the arts. His farsighted edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a hygienic precaution. One summer day while visiting a distant region of his realm he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, the servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the nearby bush fell into the boiling water, and a brown liquid was infused into the water. As a scientist, the Emperor was interested in the new liquid, drank some, and found it very refreshing. And so, according to legend, tea was created. This myth maintains such a practical narrative, that many mythologists believe it may relate closely to the actual events, now lost in ancient history.
(Note: India, along with China and Sri Lanka occupies the main tea market production of today, however Ceylon is taken as an example to illustrate tea production).

From China to Ceylon. James Taylor initiated the tea cultivation in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in the mid 19 century. In 1851 near Mincing Lane, which was later renowned as the tea centre of the world, he started to experiment with tea plants. The Peradeniya nursery supplied him with his first tea seeds around 1860. Taylor then set up the first tea «factory», which soon became famous throughout the island. In 1872, Taylor invented a machine for rolling leaves, and a year later sent twenty- three pounds of tea to Mincing Lane. Taylor trained a number of assistants, and from that point on Ceylon tea arrived regularly in London and Melbourne. Its success led to the opening of an auction market in Colombo in 1883, and to the founding of a Colombo tea dealers’ association in 1894. The planters’ association supported this propaganda campaign by organizing various publicity events. In 1891, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Alexander III, Grand-Duke Nicolas, the queen of Italy and Emperor Franz-Josef all received sixty coffers of tea accompanied by an illustrated album on Ceylon. The promotional policy was so effective that by the end of the 19th century, the word «tea» was no longer associated with China, but with Ceylon, transforming this island from a ruined coffee-producing region to one famous worldwide for its finest tea. In this connection one more name should be mentioned: Thomas Lipton.

Thomas Lipton, son of poor Irish immigrants, grew up in the slums of Glasgow. He left school at the age of 10(1860) to help support his family and in 1865 sailed to America to work as a manual labourer and later manage a successful New York grocery store. It was here that he learned all the tricks and techniques of advertising and salesmanship that he later used to great effect when selling groceries and tea back in England and Scotland.

In 1890, already a millionaire, Lipton wanted to go on vacation and booked a passage to Australia. On the way, he broke his journey in Ceylon. He had an interest in tea as a product to sell in his shops. Lipton did not trust middlemen, and wanted to explore the possibilities of growing tea and bringing it direct to Britain. He bought four former coffee plantations and could now fully control his company’s tea’s quality and price. Lipton’s genius was not in the area of growing tea but rather in the marketing and distribution of the final product, and his tireless capacity to invent and popularize clever slogans and effective advertising campaigns are legendary. Instead of selling it loose from the chest, as was the custom at that time, Lipton packed his tea in brightly-coloured, eye-catching packets bearing the slogan «Straight from the tea gardens to the tea pot.» Lipton’s foray into tea was a huge success. His 300 shops throughout Britain soon could not keep up with the growing demand for his inexpensive product, and so Lipton teas became available in other stores around Britain. The name of Lipton had migrated from a chain of grocery stores and became a trademark soon to be famous the world-over. In 1897 Queen Victoria, a big fan of the Lipton tea brand, elevated Thomas Lipton to knighthood.

Now back to the tea itself: altitude and quality. The tea plant grows at altitudes from near sea-level, to 6000 feet and above. The flavour, taste, and colour of the brewed beverage varies significantly with the altitude at which the plant is grown. Teas grown at lower altitudes brew a darker coloured beverage, whereas teas grown at higher altitudes - about 3000 feet and above - brew a bright, lighter coloured beverage with an abundance of flavour, delicious taste and rich quality. The higher the altitude of growth, the more pronounced are these finer qualities in tea. Although tea is cultivated in many regions of the world and originates from the same plant species , six major factors interact naturally with one another in combination to influence the final quality of the tea:

1. Strain of the tea plant.
2. Soil composition
3. Extent of sunshine and air temperature
4. Extent of humidity in the air
5. Altitude at which it is grown and produced
6. Type of manufacture, processing and grading

Harvesting. Only the two tender leaves and bud of each of the several young shoots of the tea plant are necessary for the production of the best grades of tea. Each new growth of young shoots are hand-picked at intervals of 8 to 10 days throughout the year. How- ever, during the process of picking by workers of varying skills and agility, some mature leaves and stems are unavoidably harvested. Consequently, several grades of tea are produced, with each grade reflecting the leaf quality harvested. (Note: The harvesting remains purely hand work. The machines for harvesting tea were used in the Soviet regime in Georgia, but the results were very poor).

Processing and manufacture. The harvested leaves are spread thinly on perforated trays and remain for nine or more hours with fresh mountain air flowing over the leaves to reduce the excess leaf moisture. The withered leaves are then subjected to a circular motioned, weight pressured rolling process to cause the leaf cells to rupture for oxidation of its juice to commence and also to twist and break-up the leaves into smaller particles. Controlled oxidation is essential to bring out the intrinsic brightness, colour, flavour and taste of the juice in the tender leaves and buds to their best potential, at which stage, the green leaves change in colour to that of a coppery tone. The leaf particles are then subjected to a short period of con- trolled heat to stop further oxidation, at which stage, the coppery coloured leaf particles turn black and hence referred to as “Black Tea”. Note: It takes as much as five pounds of the harvested leaf to produce one pound of “Black Tea”!

Grading. The “Black Tea” is then graded according to its originally harvested leaf quality and uniformity of size. The best grades produced are referred to and sold as “Primary, or Main Grades” and the others as “Off-Grades”.

The major “Primary, or Main Grades” are shown in the table below:

BOPF
Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings . This is the Primary, or Main Grade of Tea, very similar to BOP, but the liquor is slightly stronger and it forms about 20% of the produce. The particle size is between 500-850 micrones

OP
Orange Pekoe. A good quality tea, it is wiry black and long. It is a fancy grade with light liquor. It can be considered as a Main Grade Tea.

BP
This is an Off-Grade tea, and does not contain the same flavour etc. as the Main Grades

Fannings
This is an Off-Grade tea and dose not contain the same flavour etc. as the Main Grade

Dust No. 1
This is the smallest of the Main Grades and forms about 10% of the produce. The liquor is much stronger than BOP or BOPF. The particle size is between 420 and 500 micrones. (This tea is used for the high quality tea bags).

Dust No. 2
This is an Off-Grade tea and does not contain the same flavour etc. as the Main Grade. (This tea is also used for tea bags).

Notes: These “Black Tea” grades are somewhat subjective and can vary from region to region. “Pekoe” is pronounced peck-oh, the word is derived from the word “Peak”. The word “orange” does not have any connection with the fruit “orange” and there is no orange flavouring in any of these teas, the word “orange” mean rather the colour of the liquor of the tea.

––––––––––

Having written all that, I decided to visit a tea-room near-by. Would it be as I had imagined it above?
“I would like a cup of BOPF”, I asked I to satisfy my own curiosity. 
“BOPF Ceylon? Indian? With flavour, without flavour?” I could not believe my ears! The voice in the tea-room continued: “If you are not used to Broken Orange Pekoh Fannings, we would rather recommend BOP”.
I turned my head and saw the grade table on the wall. On the opposite wall I saw tea plantations and women collecting tea at the different mountain altitudes. Astounded I looked around … only to hear the noise of my alarm-clock.